Archive for the ‘Hiring’ category
January 4, 2009
As with most management techniques and interventions, there are guidelines and strategies that will help to assure a successful delegation process. Here are some that I have found to be most effective and important.
- Define the task and clarify the goals. Confirm in your mind that the task is suitable to be delegated. Understand what you hope to achieve by delegation.
- Select the individual. Be clear as to why you are selecting this person to perform the assignments. Make certain that he or she has the skills or can grow from the opportunity. Assess the person’s ability and provide the appropriate training and coaching, if necessary.
- Explain the reasons for delegation and clarify relevant policies. You must explain to the person why the job is being delegated and why he or she has been selected. The person must also have context as to where the assignment fits into the overall scheme of things and be provided with any background data that is necessary.
- Agree on the expected results and deadlines. Make sure that the individual understands what tasks he is expected to perform, what the expected outcome is, and by when the task must be completed. This will also assure that you have the individual’s buy-in. Such goals should always be linked to the company’s basic objectives of profitability, effectiveness, efficiency, customer satisfaction, community service, etc. Be explicit. For example, “When you report back, I’ll be expecting information on the costs of the project, how much manpower we’ll need, any obstacles you foresee, the sequence in which we will have to operate, and the milestones for each stage.”
- Define authority and responsibility. The authority needed to get the job done should be commensurate with the responsibility. Make sure the individual knows whom to turn to if the demonstration of authority causes a problem.
- Make sure the appropriate resources are available and limitations are set. Discuss and agree what resources are required to get the job done. Consider people, location, premises, equipment, money, materials, other related activities and services. Fix a top limit for expenditures and determine the limitations that may have to be imposed if you anticipate possible conflict with another department.
- Check the lines of communication. Make sure that the delegate knows with whom he or she will have to interact and that all such people are committed to being available to him or her for giving and receiving needed information.
- Institute controls. Establish reporting intervals with the delegated party so that progress can be discussed. Establish milestones that allow for spot-checking. Make certain the person understands what milestones and controls will be used.
Setting up guidelines though is not enough, especially in the case of a permanent delegation. Delegation is never abdication. Contact must be maintained for the purposes not only of control, but also to give assistance, recognition and encouragement as necessary or desirable. To delegate responsibility is not like launching a ship and praying that it will make safe harbor; you have to serve as the lighthouse for all of your ships at sea.
Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Tags: delegation, development, employee development, failure, growth, Hiring, Leadership, Management
Comments: 1 Comment
December 29, 2008
In recent weeks, I’ve devoted a number of posts to the hiring and development of leaders within an organization. Fundamental to your success will be your ability to delegate effectively and the degree to which you teach others when they should delegate.
If you want to be a successful manager, you will have to give up the belief that you can do everything yourself. Learning to delegate is difficult for many managers. Sometimes this is because we don’t have confidence in those working for us or we wonder if they can do as good a job as we would. Sometimes our own lack of self confidence kicks in or we are averse to taking the risk that a failure might occur.
When done properly, the benefits of good delegation are significant. It will allow you to devote your energies to more appropriate matters, develop your people, motivate your staff, and grow your succession pipeline.
These are the circumstances when one should consider delegating.
- When there is a lot of work to be done in a limited amount of time
- When you feel someone has particular qualifications appropriate to the task
- When someone expresses strong interest in the task
- When you think that a person might benefit from the responsibility.
There are also situations when you should not delegate.
- When the task is typically part of your specific responsibilities, except in emergencies
- When it is something you would not be willing to do
- When the task is not suited to the person’s capabilities (This would be guaranteeing failure.)
In our next post, we’ll present specific guidelines that will allow you to delegate effectively.
Categories: Hiring, Leadership
Tags: delegation, development, employee development, failure, growth, Hiring, Leadership, Management
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December 9, 2008
Let’s continue on our path to growing our leader. When our leader moves to this next level, he or she has become removed from communicating with the individual contributor.
| From Managing Others to Functional Manager |
| Skill Requirements |
- New communication skills must be developed to reach all levels.
- Understand and manage areas outside of one’s own work experiences.
- Illustrate the maturity to take other functional concerns into consideration.
- Become proficient at functional strategy and the ability to blend that strategy with the overall business strategy.
|
| Time Applications |
Participate in business team meetings and work with other functional managers. Team play with other functional managers and management of competing resources is vital. Limit the focus on functional matters. Delegate functional responsibilities to direct reports. |
| Work Values |
Shift here is from talking to listening to not only direct reports but customers, vendors and industry analysts so that more facts and perspectives may be gathered. Adopt a broad, long-term perspective (three years). Focus is on pushing the technical, professional and operational envelope, looking for sustainable competitive advantage rather than immediate but temporary edge. Understand the relationship between the function and other functions as well as the overall corporate strategy. Appreciate the work that is outside one’s own experiences. |
| Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered |
- Favoring and concentrating on areas where the individual is most comfortable, thereby undervaluing the unknown.
- Failure to make the transition from an operational-project orientation to a strategic one (e.g. more focused on short term, demonstrates a poor sense of how the business operates.)
- Immaturity as a leader-manager (e.g. lack of a control or measurement system, need to control everything, doesn’t trust others especially subordinates in unfamiliar areas, isolates himself except for a few direct reports where he or she has relationships).
|
| Management’s Role in this Transition |
Place these managers on task forces, teams and committees of managers from different functions or with different backgrounds, skills and experiences. This will allow them to learn about new areas of work, develop new relationships with people who use different skills and methods.
Create meeting opportunities with other functional managers to discuss how they can work better together and what other opportunities exist for synergies.
Watch for development of and reinforce traits of maturity such as humility (aware that others may know more about something), delegation, communication and strong information flows within their organization. |
By now you have probably noted that the common theme is that the skills in each of these passages are not the ones that you will use to become effective at the next level.
Let’s see if this trend continues.
| From Functional Manager to Business Manager |
| Skill Requirements |
- Significant increase in autonomy, unfamiliarity and complexity at this level with a clear link between efforts and marketplace results.
- Where he or she had to understand different functions before, he or she must now rely and integrate the functions and their leadership.
- Balance future goals and present needs and make appropriate trade-offs.
- The issue is no longer can we do something technically but rather will we make any money at this and is this profitability sustainable.
- Become skilled at working with a wide variety of people and become sensitive to diverse functional issues.
|
| Time Applications |
Shift from doing time to thinking time. |
| Work Values |
Learn to trust, accept advice and receive feedback from all functional managers even though they may never have experienced these functions personally. |
| Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered |
- Uninspired communications that doesn’t allow them to get their message across. This is because they are used to motivating a group of functional people who shared a particular “language” and now must address groups with different “languages”.
- Inability to assemble a strong team of direct reports
- Failure to grasp how the business can make money. This manifests itself in the failure to develop expense reduction or profit building programs. .
- Problems with time management particularly in working upward, with direct reports and customers.
- Neglecting the soft issues such as culture, feedback or organizational belief systems.
|
| Management’s Role in this Transition |
Help business managers to learn to value all functions and assemble and rely on a strong team of direct reports. Encourage the business manager to spend time with each of his functional mangers to learn. Have them set goals which can serve as early warning systems of problems. Suggest that the business manager take an appropriate functional manager on trips to become more attuned to the marketplace. |
Our next post will address two critical questions:
- Who is most responsible for the success of your leadership?
- What influences the likelihood that your people will execute successfully?
Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, business manager position, CEO, Charan, consumer bank, crossroads model, direct reports, enterprise leaders, full performer, functional leaders, functional managers, group executives, group functional manager, Hiring, James Noel, Leadership, leadership development system, leadership levels, leadership passage, leadership pipeline, leadership turn, managing managers, mastery potential, new business managers, next leadership level, pipeline model, pipeline problems, President Elect Obama, Ram Charan, role, skill requirements, Stephen Drotter, The Leadership Pipeline, time applications, Transition Team, work values
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December 4, 2008
The “Leadership Pipeline” model can be scaled for small and large companies and includes six major leadership passages. For example, in a small company of less than twenty people, the only real passage is a variation on the first one, Managing Self to Managing Others. The owner usually moves from individual contributor to managing others. It is only once you begin to hire others that these passages of leadership start to occur.
In the small business version of this model, the work within the group and enterprise levels is done by the Business Manager. The Functional Manager and Manager of Others levels are combined so there are really only four levels to address.
The small business model looks like this.
Level 1: Manage Self
Level 2: Manage Others
Level 3: Functional Manager
Level 4: Business Manager
Let’s take apart a couple of the levels and see how we can help our people become better leaders.
When one is effective at the “managing self” level, one’s skill requirements are primarily technical or professional. One contributes by doing the assigned work within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives. From a time application standpoint, the learning involves planning (so the work is completed on time), punctuality, content, quality, and reliability. The work values to be developed include acceptance of the company culture and adopting professional standards. When people demonstrate an ability to handle these responsibilities and adhere to the company’s values, they are often promoted to first-line manager.
| Managing Self |
| Skill Requirements |
Do the assigned work within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives |
| Time applications |
Plan so work is completed on time, be punctual, deliver quality content and be reliable |
| Work Values |
Accept the company’s culture and adopt professional standards |
This high performer is now ready for the first leadership stage. Let’s see what s/he needs to do to become effective in her/his new role.
| From Managing Self to Managing Others |
| Skill Requirements |
Plan work, fill jobs, assign work, motivate, coach and measure the work of others. There are some individual contributions to the work product. |
| Time Applications |
Reallocate time so that one’s own work is completed and help others perform effectively. Set priorities for unit and team. Stop putting out fires, seizing opportunities and handling tasks themselves. |
| Work Values |
Delegate and get results through others. Value managerial work (rather than tolerating it) and the success of others. The passage begins a shift toward a great emphasis on planning. |
| Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered |
- Views questions from his or her people as interruptions
- Fixes their mistakes rather than teaching them to do the work properly
- Refuses to take ownership of the success of his or her people, distancing himself or herself from their problems and failures.
|
| Management’s Role in this Transition |
Create measures so that these performers make the transition effectively. Survey the direct reports to get feedback. Intervene and coach extensively when problems are observed. . Reinforce the need to shift beliefs and guide the leader in becoming effective using the new skills that are required. |
As you can see, to be successful at managing others, our manager will have to shift from many of the things that made him or her successful when he was accountable for only his work. There must be a shift from “doing work” to getting work done through others.
In our next post, we’ll look at the remaining levels of the small business model outlined in Ram Charan’s and Stephen Drotter’s book, The Leadership Pipeline.
Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, business manager position, CEO, Charan, consumer bank, crossroads model, direct reports, enterprise leaders, full performer, functional leaders, functional managers, group executives, group functional manager, Hiring, James Noel, Leadership, leadership development system, leadership levels, leadership passage, leadership pipeline, leadership turn, managing managers, mastery potential, new business managers, next leadership level, pipeline model, pipeline problems, President Elect Obama, Ram Charan, role, skill requirements, Stephen Drotter, The Leadership Pipeline, time applications, Transition Team, work values
Comments: 1 Comment
November 27, 2008
Without a doubt, the most important role of leadership is to develop the next generation of leaders. After all, hiring is really just a license to learn the job.
Without strong leadership throughout the company, growth will be restricted and limited. Improper decisions will be made or decisions will need to be centralized and funneled to a few leaders who will quickly become overwhelmed. Once overwhelmed, they too will make inappropriate decisions or they will delegate these decisions to those who lack the ability to make them effectively.
Most companies focus on personal traits and technical competence when making hiring decisions. The working assumption is that if a person performed well in one job, he or she will perform well in the next. This of course often proves not to be the case. And hiring gifted people from outside the company makes sense as a tactic but not as a strategy, because there is a scarcity of highly talented individuals. To address this challenge, CEOs need to look at this leadership development challenge as integral to an effective business strategy.
Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel have articulated in their book, The Leadership Pipeline, a way to understand how individuals grow to become leaders and the steps that we can take to make this transition more effective.
There are three major benefits to adopting this pipeline model.
- Emotional stress for individual employees is reduced.
- Skipping passages becomes unlikely.
- The time to prepare someone for the top level is dramatically reduced because it becomes easier to recognize when an employee is ready to move to the next level.
The authors assert that there is a natural hierarchy of work. This hierarchy takes the form of six career passages or pipeline turns. This pipeline is not a cylinder but rather one that is bent in six places. At each change in organizational position, a significant turn has to be made. These turns involve a major change in three areas.
- Job requirements, demanding new skills
- The way they use their time, which we’ll call time applications, and
- Work values
Unfortunately, many managers often work at the wrong level. They’re clinging to values appropriate to earlier passages in which they managed others individually rather than managing other managers. Or, they haven’t acquired the skills or time applications appropriate to their current level. As a result they are less effective or ineffective leaders and the people they manage are negatively affected as well.
The challenge for organizations is to make sure that people in leadership positions are assigned to the level appropriate to their skills, time applications, and values. With an understanding of this model, bosses can become better coaches and more supportive as they recognize the issues with which new leaders are struggling. What prevents companies from growing is, more often than not, the failure of people to be willing to change their work habits, give up their hands-on involvement, or trust a new layer of management.
We’ll explore this concept and approach in the next post.
Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, business manager position, CEO, Charan, consumer bank, crossroads model, direct reports, enterprise leaders, full performer, functional leaders, functional managers, group executives, group functional manager, Hiring, James Noel, Leadership, leadership development system, leadership levels, leadership passage, leadership pipeline, leadership turn, managing managers, mastery potential, new business managers, next leadership level, pipeline model, pipeline problems, Ram Charan, role, Stephen Drotter, The Leadership Pipeline
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November 23, 2008
Regardless of all of the analysis or perhaps, even as a result of it, we all discover that there are certain employees or new hires who are not in the right job or simply do not belong in the organization. These are people who are not achieving their performance goals or are failing to exercise leadership effectively. An effective leader must address this situation as well.
Failure to do so exhibits false kindness. While it may be easier to leave these professionals in their roles, doing so harms the leader, other staff, and the whole company. Additionally, it sends a message that non-performance is acceptable in the company.
An employee may not be effective in the job because of any of six reasons. The person lacks the ability, was improperly trained or oriented, has the wrong attitude, demonstrates the wrong behaviors, lacks the required skills, or lacks experience.
To remedy these situations, there are four options. . You can train the employee, coach him or her, shift the person to another position, or let the person go. There is a way to determine what the appropriate remedy for each situation is.
If it is a matter of skills, training is the appropriate remedy.
Attitude related issues may be remedied by discovering what is causing the difficulty, and then addressing the issue while coaching and motivating the employee.
Correcting behavioral issues requires coaching and patience. Behaviors shift over time. In order for the supervisor to determine whether that amount of effort should be expended, he or she must determine whether the employee adds significant value in other areas.
If the person lacks sufficient experience, it may be possible to shift the employee to a position where her/his experience level is appropriate.
If the person lacks the ability, that individual should be let go. No amount of training, coaching, or shifting will allow him or her to make a meaningful contribution.
In the course of my career as a CEO and COO, I have had to let people go. In each case, I attempted to make sure that they left with their dignity intact, with appropriate severance, and frequently with another job in hand. In several cases, I created an exit strategy that allowed them to stay in their job until they found another and could then announce to their colleagues that they had accepted another position. In other words, if you release people in the same way that you hire and manage them, with integrity, honesty, and communication, the difficult process of letting people go is much easier.
Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: attitudes, behaviors, coaching, employee management, employye, exit strategy, False kindness, firing, Hiring, hiring problems, Management, new hire
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November 16, 2008
In my last post, I mentioned that our interview process concludes with the reference check. I have known managers who have skipped this step. My advice — Don’t! With active listening, you can learn a great deal about your prospective hire including the best way to manage them.
Incidentally, one of the greatest sources of insights are references who are past teachers or professors of the candidate. I have found that teachers and professors have been trained to offer positives and then add an area for improvement. Their insight is usually spot on because they have been observing the candidate for a
The idea is to allow the reference to speak at length. Therefore, after asking a question, pause, and let the reference fill in the uncomfortable gap that silence sometimes creates.long time and have been evaluating areas where they can improve on an ongoing basis.
Here are some examples of the types of questions that we ask the candidate’s references.
- How do you know the candidate?
- What do you think of him/her?
- What is his/her greatest strength?
- As it relates to managing or coaching, what should I do to bring out the best in this person? (i.e. What type of supervision, how manage, how often to check w/them on progress)
- What can you tell me about his/her time-management skills?
- How does he/she make decisions?
- How was his/her interaction with their peers? How does he / she coach their peers?
- What other qualities does he/she possess that you feel make him/her a good employee?
- How does he/she respond to interruptions, deadlines, and pressure?
- How would you assure success for him/her? (i.e. What type of supervision, how manage, how often to check w/them on progress)
- If you had a magic wand, what would you make disappear about the candidate?
- Would you hire him/her?
- Is there anything else that you would add?
The way management selects its people is indicative of how competent management is, what it values, and how seriously it takes its job. Unlike strategic decisions, people decisions cannot be masked. They are eminently visible. However, implementing a robust hiring process will allow you to alter the culture of your company and improve its fortunes and your bottom line dramatically.
Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: Hiring, Interview, Organizational Culture, People decisions, Reference, Reference Check
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Strategy Insight 